Music from non-orchestral cultures

[Chaszz]

I don't want to flog this to death, but if key changes and equal-tempered scale are your criteria, then it's pretty much a slam dunk.  However, since, to my understanding, the ancient greeks based their music on a natural scale on exact ratios, it would stand to figure that A: they couldn't support Key changes and B: they had a richer overtones to work with.   How these map onto a concept of greatness is up to you.

Thank you very much for making me realize that overtones in ancient Greek music would have been much richer. I knew the intervals were mathematically purer but never put two and two together as far as the overtones and therefore the possibilities for subtle and deep expression. This is indeed something that could have made a significant difference. It is the kind of comment that teaches me something important and makes me feel it was worthwhile to open this thread, notwithstanding the baby's yawn, which was funny. Here in my opinion is why we have a forum. Thanks again!

[Franco]

I am tired of the term "greatness" being used to describe music.

Why is it important for us to announce that Work X is great but Work B is not.  Or, the even more egregious, Culture A has produced countless works of greatness, and will continue to, but Culture Y has not, and cannot.

For me, these pronouncements signify nothing other than the speaker's taste, and way of appreciating music - it says nothing objective about music.  No one will ever be such an authority (IMO) to persuasively render these kinds of judgments.  Not that music must be great in order to be worthwhile.

Kind of like, the he-ain't-a-genius-so-why-bother syndrome.

[Elgarian]

Why is it important for us to announce that Work X is great but Work B is not.  Or, the even more egregious, Culture A has produced countless works of greatness, and will continue to, but Culture Y has not, and cannot.

I haven't been following this thread, but I stumbled into it by accident; and I can't help noticing once again another finely conceived post by Franco, refreshingly rooted in the primary and life-enhancing importance of experiencing art, as opposed to assessing or judging it according to currently fashionable Western criteria. Breath of fresh air, as ever.

[Josquin des Prez]

My problem with your line of reasoning James, is that your point of departure in defining the criteria for your argument are all based on western assumptions of what consititutes greatness, complexity, etc. For instance, you assume that longevity is a key here, which is why improvisation does not count in your opinion. First of all, you forget about recording media vs written notation: certainly improvisations captured on tape may be "built to last"?  - and I am sure that if we ever by a miracle discovered tapes of Bach, Beethoven or Liszt improvising, those tapes would be very highly valued. But more importantly, the idea of longevity as a key factor here is ethnocentric. In other cultures the idea of attachment to the present moment is more highly valued than attachment to the future, , and in this context your arguments may be inverted: improvised music may be perceived of as of a "higher order" than written music. There is simply not universal criteria for greatness that would allow us to make straight forward comparisons.

This argument falls apart once you start throwing in certain types of wonderful cultural artifacts, like slavery, beheading or female circumcision. How dare we criticize those practices with our ethnocentric moral standards?

[jowcol]

This argument falls apart once you start throwing in certain types of wonderful cultural artifacts, like slavery, beheading or female circumcision. How dare we criticize those practices with our ethnocentric moral standards?

This is an excellent point!  (Although, as a side note, this thread was originally about music, I'm willing to color outside the lines if that's where this is headed.  )

Yes, we can criticize what we find wrong and morally repugnant.  I don't see mankind become any more civilized if we don't.

The sad thing is, none of the cultures we've discussed are immune. You've pointed out some good ones (and I'm sure the list wasn't nearly long enough!)  But that sword cuts both ways.   Western Culture has its elements of shame as well.    If we were to declare that beheadings were not part of our Western culture, that would not be much comfort for those who were escorted to the Guillotine during the Terror.  Female circumcisions-- thank god, are not, to my knowledge, part of western civilization-- althoughchastity belts were.  Slavery-- tolerated far more than it should have been in western countries.  Slavery wasn't abolished in teh British Empire until 1833-- during which time the likes of Bach and Beethoven were active.   Finally, we have to admit the western culture that gave us the soaring cathedrals and monuments of sound that we admire so much also gave us the gas ovens at Dachau, the pogroms, the inquisitions, and a lot of other things that our western code of ethics did not seem to prevent.  It didn't stop at the Holocaust-- wasn't the butchery in Bosnia part of western civilization?  (Yes--  western culture is not alone in butchery-- we can talk the mongol horde,  Pol Pot,  the Rape of Nanking, victims of the original Jihads down to the victims of modern terrorists.   No culture should get a "free pass" in my book.  ) .


Your point does an excellent job of  illustrating how applying a blanket grade to an entire culture prevents us from applying both our intelligence and ethics in assessing its specifics.   If I find either a handful of really horrific or really sublime things about a culture, are those enough data points for a comprehensive assessment? Do we need to handicap our thinking into a simple binary classification?  Or, if the data doesn't fit our conceptual models, can't we come up with a more sophisticated one that allows for the contradictions that are the norm rather than the exception?



Let's scope your point to a single artist, where I find it is also VERY  relevant.  Let's take Wagner, who some might hail as an example of Western Genius.  If one loves his music, must one also love his anti-semitic polemics such as "Das Judenthum in der Musik?"  Or do we look on this as a product of a human who had strengths and weaknesses, and who may not have been "genius" enough to have seen past the common prejudices in his society?   

For me, in some cases I've had to draw a strong distinction between the artist as musician (who I can admire) and the artist as a man (who I find a disappointment.)  I'm a big fan of Miles Davis the musician-- but there is a lot about the person I've found abhorrent.  (Although, he was, like practically everyone, a maze of contradictions on nearly every topic.  In his bio, he could hardly make up his mind on whites and classical music, but he attitude towards women was consistently repellent to me. ).


So, to answer the question you posted, the answer is yes!  We should  dare.   In my book, we should dare to both praise the practices and activities and cultures and artists that "raise the bar", and also should dare to call out that which we find morally repugnant. (And no, I don't think any one culture has a monopoly on either extreme, unfortunatelly).  But as you pointed out, gross oversimplifications make it hard for us to use our intelligence, aesthetics, and ethics effectively in specific situations, and often "short circuit" our cognitive processes. .  If we are using the axiom that any culture (or artist) is either inherently good or bad before defining the scope and criteria be which we are assessing, we are responding blindly, not really thinking. 

So, why not talk in specifics, and realize that some of the topics we are assessing require a balanced analysis, and a real investigation of specifics, rather than struggling to force a widely varied set of square pegs into a limited set of round holes?  Why not turn our powers of analysis and objectivity onto our selves and our subjectivity, and better understand why we like what we like?

Of course, a first step may be to talk a little bit about music.  My apologies for going so far off topic...

[jowcol]

.i love reading these utterly ridiculous dismissals from you noisemakers on the sidelines who don't offer anything to the discussion at all.

Ah grasshopper, it is not that us humble, ridiculous noisemakers don't offer anything, it is that we offer NOTHING, which is the greatest gift of all...

Tao-Te-Ching Chapter 11

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.


In the meantime, I'm sure I'm depriving some village of their idiot....

[Ugh]

This argument falls apart once you start throwing in certain types of wonderful cultural artifacts, like slavery, beheading or female circumcision. How dare we criticize those practices with our ethnocentric moral standards?

So if cultural relativism has a limit it implies that we should stick to ethnocentrism?

[Josquin des Prez]

So if cultural relativism has a limit it implies that we should stick to ethnocentrism?

It implies cultural relativism has no meaning. Furthermore, a civilization that does not believe in itself has no future. Its a bankrupt philosophy that can only lead to cultural death. Western civilization was infinitely better off when it was stuck with an ethnocentric point of view.

[Elgarian]

and we're at a forum here so these sort of discussions are bound to come up.

Indeed. Including views different to yours, James.

[jowcol]

It implies cultural relativism has no meaning. Furthermore, a civilization that does not believe in itself has no future. Its a bankrupt philosophy that can only lead to cultural death.

Or, could it be that a civilization that ceases to be exposed to new ideas has no future?  Contact with the arab world during the crusades, along with trade, provided advances in optics, medicine, engineering and algebra that helped fuel the Renaissance.   Should we give back the number zero and start over?  Is it not a coincidence that most of the great centers of learning thrived in trade hubs where people from different cultures interacted?

A Western philosopher (Hegel), advanced the notion of the dialectic where progress occurred from the clash of different theses.  A lack of an antithetical view would inhibit growth.

Western civilization was infinitely better off when it was stuck with an ethnocentric point of view.

The Dark Ages were a time where trade was limited and the influx of outside ideas was much more limited than either the classical period or the Renaissance.  But there as a reason they were called the "Dark Ages. "

[Ugh]

It implies cultural relativism has no meaning. Furthermore, a civilization that does not believe in itself has no future. Its a bankrupt philosophy that can only lead to cultural death. Western civilization was infinitely better off when it was stuck with an ethnocentric point of view.

Thanks for clearing that up. Now I know where you stand. I am over here, far, far over at the other side.

[Josquin des Prez]

Or, could it be that a civilization that ceases to be exposed to new ideas has no future?

No, a civilization ceases to be when it is unable to produce ideas of its own.

[jowcol]

No, a civilization ceases to be when its is unable to produce ideas of its own.

Given the axiom provided in your response, do we conclude the Western Culture died at the onset of the  Renaissance?


Also, from the Wiki page on western culture cited earlier on this thread:

Furthermore, "Western culture" has taken many of its elements from neighboring areas in the Middle East and North Africa. Europe (whose borders are arbitrary) is an area geographically connected to Asia (forming Eurasia) and Africa, and important cultural exchanges such as trade and migration take place.

The wikipedia page on Western Culture that you cited also says:

As a consequence the term "Western culture" is at times unhelpful and vague, since the definition involved a vast variety of distinct traditions, political groups, religious groups, and individual writers over thousands of years.

[Josquin des Prez]

Lets put this way. Without an ethnocentric point of view, there would be no idea of a "western civilization", which makes the entire process of cultural exchange meaningless. You cannot influence something that does not exist in the first place. When a culture-less people come in contact with another civilization, there is only assimilation of the first into the fixed paradigm of the latter. Thus, witness for instance the grotesque sight of confused Europeans drawing towards "Eastern philosophies" that they barely understand, let alone claim their own, without even possessing the slighest knowledge of the philosophical patrimony created by their own ancestors.

[jowcol]

Lets put this way. Without an ethnocentric point of view, there would be no idea of a "western civilization", which makes the entire process of cultural exchange meaningless. You cannot influence something that does not exist in the first place.

Excellent point, although it tends to deflate the notion of an objective, empirical notion of a "culture", since  "view" does not define an objective "thing".   You have confirmed that a "view" or subjective assessment is what is needed to have a "western civilization", than it is a subjective idea.  If this discussion has highlighted anything, it's how notions of what constiutes a culture are not shared, not empirically identifiable, and probably has as many definitions are there are people. 

When a culture-less people come in contact with another civilization, there is only assimilation of the first into the fixed paradigm of the latter.

I'm curious-- what examples do we have of a  culture-less people, and how would you define it so that it could be consistently applied by someone other than yourself?  You are implying a zero knowledge transfer.  How would the infusion of muslim scholarship into the "western" culture be viewed?

Thus, witness for instance the grotesque sight of confused Europeans drawing towards "Eastern philosophies" that they barely understand, let alone claim their own, without even possessing the slighest knowledge of the philosophical patrimony created by their own ancestors.

So, would Edward Fitzgerald, who attended Cambridge and studies the works of Plato and Spanish poetry, and then translated the Rubiyat, be one who did not " possess{...} the slighest knowledge of the philosophical patrimony created by their own ancestors?"

Did Evans-Wentz, who studied with Yeats and William James prior to pulling together his translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead?

Would the same assessment apply to Christopher Isherwood , who helped develop one of the best translations of the Bhagavad-Gita?

I would fail so see how any of these people demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of their ancestors.  But they did have open minds.

[Elgarian]

at least I offer one.

Ah. I hadn't noticed. It was Franco's post that interested me.

[Ugh]

Lets put this way. Without an ethnocentric point of view, there would be no idea of a "western civilization", which makes the entire process of cultural exchange meaningless. You cannot influence something that does not exist in the first place. When a culture-less people come in contact with another civilization, there is only assimilation of the first into the fixed paradigm of the latter. Thus, witness for instance the grotesque sight of confused Europeans drawing towards "Eastern philosophies" that they barely understand, let alone claim their own, without even possessing the slighest knowledge of the philosophical patrimony created by their own ancestors.

I am a doctor in social anthropology and find that your arguments strongly resemble that of many young students enrolling in courses on culture for the first time.

The idea of "a culture-less people" for instance is ridiculous. When "confused" Europeans are drawn towards Eastern philosophies they integrate it within the context of their own cultural perceptions - and consequently create something novel, rather than merely assimilating a paradigm. For instance, US west coast yoga has developed within a context of specific perceptions of the body and the individual's place in the larger society, and has become something else than yoga in the east.

And when you refer to the philosophical patrimony of Europe - Certainly European philosophies have developed in conversation with eastern philosophies.... or would you rather eliminate the likes of Schopenhauer, Nietszche and Bergson from the patrimony list?

You prefer it to be 100 % European?
I can only but refer to Ralph Linton's excellent essay on cultural exchange:

http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w111/articles/100%25American.htm

You are a man who seeks knowledge - why not read up on cultural processes?

[Florestan]

Given the axiom provided in your response, do we conclude the Western Culture died at the onset of the  Renaissance?

Do you imply that since Renaissance the West has not produced any idea of its own?

[jowcol]

Do you imply that since Renaissance the West has not produced any idea of its own?

No-- but rather that "Western Culture" has developed through interaction with other cultures, and to assume any "purity" or "objective definition" of it is to oversimplify the historical record.  Yes it has produced many ideas-- but many of them have been triggered through interactions with other cultures.   The Renaissance is an excellent example of how trade and encounter with other cultures created one of the most splendid flowerings of thought ever witnessed in history-- (yes, that is an opinion.)  It's not to devalue the great minds of Western culture-- but rather to provide a fuller context for how cultures have developed.

[jowcol]

When a culture-less people come in contact with another civilization, there is only assimilation of the first into the fixed paradigm of the latter.

I think that fixed is an operative term here.  This assumes a static model.  When exactly was western culture "fixed?" Can we name a year, a decade, so that everything before was leading up to it, and I'd assuming anything after is a collapse into decadence?

The questions I've been raising have, believe it or not, been aimed at establishing the validity of a dynamic model.  As Heraclitus said (pre-Socratic philosopher-- hopefully considered part of western patrimony) "you can't step in the same river twice."